Portland City Council agrees to limit parking for commuters

View full sizeMotoya Nakamura/The OregonianThe Portland-owned SmartPark garage at Southwest Third Avenue and Alder Street will stop selling monthly permits soon. The Portland City Council, in response to a complaint from the Portland Business Alliance, agreed Wednesday to limit commuter use of three downtown garages to open more room for shoppers. The other two garages will still sell monthly permits but at higher rates.

The PBA, in a letter to Mayor Sam Adams in August, accused the city of violating conditional-use permits for the city-owned garages by selling too many monthly permits -- hurting retailers by cutting into parking for shoppers.

The 1984 permit for one of the garages, at Southwest 10th and Yamhill, discourages all-day parking and notes that SmartPark garages were built to help retailers draw shoppers for quick trips, not to provide an inexpensive option for commuters.

But a couple of years ago, after the recession drove down the number of shoppers, the city began selling more monthly permits to make up lost revenue.

In its letter, the PBA argued that's not acceptable. It called short-term parking downtown "a need that today is as important as ever," especially with plans for a Target and businesses such as Sephora and the new Nike store taking root.

The council voted 4-0 to reverse course, giving the Portland Bureau of Transportation authority to raise monthly rates at two garages -- the one at 10th and Yamhill, and one at Fourth and Yamhill -- and to eliminate monthly permits at the Third and Alder garage.

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Current rates at the three garages are $165 a month. Under the new ordinance, the rates will increase by June1 to at least $10 above the monthly average at nearby privately owned garages to encourage commuters to move. The city has set them at $195 for 10th and Yamhill, $200 for Fourth and Yamhill.

The PBA is pleased with the changes, spokeswoman Megan Doern said.

The city, however, did not concede that it broke any rules. Caryn Brooks, a spokeswoman for Adams, said in an email that the changes came in response to downtown's improving economy and retailers' parking needs -- not any determination that city officials violated permits.

A recent memo from the mayor's office on the permits calls the language in one "somewhat ambiguous" and says that in another, "none of the conditions of approval expressly address or prohibit long-term parking." The permit for the Third and Alder garage is missing, according to Ross Caron, a spokesman for the Bureau of Development Services, which issues conditional-use permits.

The SmartPark garages are among six the city owns downtown. The system generated controversy in 2010 after the Transportation Bureau chose a Tennessee company to manage day-to-day operations, drawing accusations of unfairness from two Portland bidders. The city canceled the contract and redid the process only to choose the Tennessee company again. -- Beth Slovic